The Wolff Brothers, of Sheboygan,
have opened a meat market in the building north of the Neillsville Bank, on Main
Street. They are first class butchers and will undoubtedly do a good business.

The frame work of Korman & Taplin’s
foundry and machine shop, on Neillsville’s north side, is up and part of the
machinery has arrived. The main building is 20 x 100 feet, with an addition, 20
x 20 feet, on the north side, to be used for a blacksmith shop.

The water in Wedges Creek and Black
River has been very high during the last week. However, the dance at Adkin’s
was a success despite the rising water. It was a hazardous undertaking to get
across the river to the dance, but the young fellows were able to pilot their
girl friends across the river without the loss of any lives.

Chas. Gates has purchased one of
Tuft’s Alaska soda fountains and is dispensing a genuine article of soda water.
He has also ordered a new Monarch combination billiard and pool table, one of
the best manufactured. Rooms on the first floor of his brick building on Second
Street will be fitted up in first-class style for the pool table. The room will
be done-up in such a manner that ladies may enter with propriety.

The plastering is all done in the
sheriff’s residence. Daniel Riedel and Alvin White are putting the finishing
touches on the interior woodwork.

The celebration of the anniversary
of our National Independence will be combined with a grand railroad opening in
honor of the completion of the railroad to Neillsville.

A procession, consisting of the
Neillsville City Bank, Sherman Guards, La Crosse Light Guards and citizens in
their carriages will meet in front of the O’Neill House at 8 a.m. They will
then proceed to march out to the west side of town to meet invited guests coming
in on the train.

After the reception of guests and
the welcoming address, a procession will form to the Firemen’s Hall at 10:30
a.m. They will march through the principal streets and then go to the grove
grounds west of town. Exercises at the grounds will consist of music, reading of
the Declaration of Independence, an oration, dinner at 1 p.m., drill by the
Guards, tight rope and slack wire exhibition. There will be a grand ball to be
held 8 p.m. at the Court House.

June 1946

Of 85 factories in Clark County
engaged three years ago in making natural cheese, 19 have been closed, 40 have
undergone change of ownership or control and only 26 remain under the same
ownership and control. Most of the 26 remaining factories are in a difficult
situation, with the prospect that most of them will be driven into a sale, lease
or some other method of escape. For some of them, negotiations are now pending.

These changes have come about in
part as the natural development of business. A few of the closed factories were
so small that it was no longer possible to operate them economically under
modern conditions. But many of the changes and practically all of the recent
ones have been brought about by the policies followed in government control.
Since about January 1 it has been impossible for a factory making natural
American cheese to pay the current price of milk meet its manufacturing costs
and sell its product at the OPA ceiling. (OPA was the abbreviation for
Office of Pricing Administration.)

With butterfat at 71 to 73 cents a
year ago, most factories in Clark County were able to sell American cheese at
the ceiling and get along. But when the price of butterfat mounted toward 80
cents, with occasional payments in some localities up even as high as 83 cents,
the maker of American cheese was completely out of luck. Those factories, which
have continued to operate under the old ownership and control, have been taking
a loss throughout 1946. In the case of one family-size factory, the identity of
which will not here be revealed, the loss has been $2,000 plus the time of the
cheese-maker and his wife. In another instance a factory already sold to a
large processor, lost $1,200 in March and this is a factory with about an
average run in business. In still another instance, known specifically to the
Clark County Press, the present loss is at the rate of $100 per day. This is
one of the larger factories, the owner of which saw the storm coming and made
his escape in time to let the big fellow worry about the loss.

Losses at this rate are utterly
beyond the reserves and staying power of the owners of small cheese factories,
who have been forced to seek relief. Their peril has coincided with a
remarkable opportunity on the part of the processors, who have customarily
bought their product. The processors have been in a favored position under the
OPA ceiling, with a wider relative margin and with a tremendous demand for their
output. As the small cheesemakers were pondering upon their plight and
picturing themselves turning the key in the door, the processors were in urgent
need of their product, natural cheese. Without the natural cheese, the
processors also would be out of luck. So the processors exercised themselves to
find a way out.

Except for price control this
situation would have righted itself in a system of free enterprise. The
processors would have raised their payments to the cheesemakers sufficiently to
keep the cheese coming. But under the conditions of OPA regulation, they could
not legally pay beyond the prescribed ceiling.

Under these conditions, four methods
of escape have been used. The first, and seemingly least drastic, has been for
the cheesemaker to retain ownership of the cheese, to arrange with a processor
for its conversion into loaf cheese and then to sell it to the processor in the
form of loaf. This method has had some small use in Central Wisconsin.

Another method is an outright sale
of the property, including both relay and equipment, made by the cheesemaker to
one of the large cheese concerns. In some, if not all of these transactions,
there is an option under which the old maker may buy back at the same price and
perhaps even with depreciation taken off at a prescribed rate. Meanwhile the
old maker works for the new owner on a salary. This plan has been styled a sale
of convenience, but is an outright sale, with very considerable sums of money
actually passing in recent weeks into the hands of cheesemakers in Clark
County. The legal situation in this case has been stated to be unassailable.

The third plan is for the large
cheese concern to take a lease on the factory for a prescribed period and to
hire the maker on a salary.

The fourth plan is to go
cooperative, a plan which is being promoted in this area by the Rib Lake Dairy
Company Co-operative, represented in their area by J. F. Pinion of Marshfield,
who is manager of its cheese marketing division. Under this plan, the margins
are automatically spread out, so that the ultimate selling price is significant
and not the ceiling on natural cheese.

Deals of the sort described above
are in effect right now in the case of many factories in Central Wisconsin.
They have the effect of stopping the loss of the small cheesemaker and they
provide him the means of livelihood, but he is no longer, in most instances, an
independent business man, with his chance to share in the good picking naturally
inherent in a tight market for cheese.

Thus the entire business of
manufacturing natural cheese in Clark County is undergoing a change which is
almost revolutionary in character. While in some instances the old situations
will be restored by exercise of options or by the expiration of leases, it is
altogether unlikely that the industry will return to anything like its old
status. Some of these deals, if not the greater part of them, will stick and the
cheese industry, with its vast importance in the marketing of milk in Clark
County, will have moved importantly toward centralization and control by the
larger interests. Whatever the long-range implications, the present picture is
one of urgent competition, with determination to protect sources of supply and
with a strong bid for local milk.

It is certain that the recent more
important changes have been brought about directly and inevitable by the
policies of OPA. That government organization has fixed definite ceilings for
cheese and butter, but has not set corresponding controls upon competitive use
of milk and cream. It is these uncontrolled competitive uses of milk and cream
which have driven up the prices beyond the reach of the small cheesemaker. Thus
price control in the dairy industry is forcing the little fellow out of
business. In the state of Wisconsin, as of April 24, about 400 cheese factories
remained in their old ownership, while 1,000 of them had passed into strong
hands. The change is proceeding with great rapidity, for the little fellow
cannot stand the gaff. Within a few months the old style cheese factory, as a
family operation, will have passed out of the picture in Wisconsin.

The following factories have been
closed and are no longer in operation:

East Worden Dairy; six miles south
of Thorp, sold to Blue Moon by Rudolph Bachman

Otter Creek factory, 2 ½ miles
northeast of Stanley, was run by Alfred Laabs, now closed

Lombard Dairy Co., seven miles
northeast of Thorp, closed

Lombard Dairy Co., 3 miles northeast
of Thorp, sold to Broeren and Decker

Junction factory, 5 miles northeast
of Thorp, closed by Ernst Looser

White Eagle Dairy, five miles north
of Thorp, sold to Blue Moon by Steve Losiewicz

Sun Shine Valley factory, five miles
south of Thorp, formerly owned by Bruno Nurmi, is closed

Pleasant Ridge Creamery Co., four
miles southeast of Neillsville, closed.

North Star factory, three miles west
of Granton, closed by Walter Reber, but he maintains the business at his nearby
East Pleasant Ridge factory.

Beaver factory, five miles northeast
of Loyal, closed by owner, Jesse J. Spieles

Clark County factory, five miles
northeast of Loyal, closed by Mike Teclaw

West Eaton factory, four miles
southwest of Greenwood, owned by Theodore Wessel, sold to Harry Schlinsog;
Schlinsog sold to Dairy Belt, the West Eaton factory is now a tavern.

South Worden Dairy, nine miles
southeast of Stanley, owned by John Wry who sold to Leo Biel, now closed.

Many of the remaining cheese
factories have undergone changes in ownership, organization or relation.

(Two weeks after the above
article about cheese factories of Clark County was published, permission was
sought by Congressman Merlin Hull and by Fred F. Murray to republish it in the
Congressional Record.)

Hull wrote as follows: “Allow me to
congratulate you upon the feature article appearing in the Clark County Press
with regard to the cheese situation in Clark County. Your dispassionate
analysis of the situation as applied to your county has made your report
extremely effective.”

The
Braun Settlement
cheese factory, nine miles northwest of Greenwood, was owned by Theodore
Braun. After closing the factory in the early ‘40s, Braun continued to operate
his farm, land upon which the cheese factory was located.

East Worden Dairy,
owned by Rudolph Bachman, was located six miles south of Thorp. The business
was sold to the Blue Moon Co., of Thorp, in the mid ‘40s.